


because i'm only fucking twenty girl

by boxerzayn



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I HATE CHEATING FICS THEY MAKE ME ANXIOUS, M/M, anyways its pretty sad, but not SO sad, hmmmm, why did i write one???????????, zayn keeps cheating on perrie with niall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:31:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxerzayn/pseuds/boxerzayn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he shouldn’t get in the cab with niall because even looking at him is a lie and a betrayal and the beginning of a sin. (but zayn’s a sinner. he started smoking when he was thirteen)</p>
            </blockquote>





	because i'm only fucking twenty girl

**Author's Note:**

> title from the weeknds song 'loft music'. thankyou for your sweet comments and also, you can find me on tumblr as boxerzayn :)
> 
> sorry if this is messy lol

something about them broke, ages ago. maybe things were broken before they were even together, maybe the two of them weren’t two halves making a whole; just two broken pieces stumbling into each other.

being in love with perrie has been a bit like that; like stumbling.stumbling out of buildings, away from papparazis, stumbeling across smiles, alcohol, phone calls.   
the two of them are all smeared lipstick, being too cold in their own beds and too hot in the same, loud laughs and short looks.  
looks that at first were just stumbeling on zayns face; nowadays on him for a reason, not asking questions, kind of accepting. things are sad. not unclear.

 

zayns mind is unclear, though, and when he lies between the sheets with nialls chest heaving besides him (heavier than perries); it’s not too cold or too hot, and he can think.  
he doesn’t really like it though, actually thinking about reality; always been too caught up in his own hazy stumbling between thoughts, always been somewhere between waking up and breakfast, between laughing and chest pains, between eyelashes, between seconds.

and those moments of clarity, those seconds of complete stillness, but with yet so many words in the room, those moments have always scared him.it’s like he stops breathing when it’s quiet, like he buzzes out, because with rehearsals and interviews and tours in his brain for years, he’s never really alone in his brain anymore.  
he doesn’t know were he belongs, inbetween. he knows he’s supposed to be on stage when he’s on stage,   
knows he’s supposed to be beside perrie in her kitchen when he’s there, humming, floating in the softness he feels in her aura.  
he knows he’s supposed to be nuzzeling in nialls neck when he is there. (niall smells like sweat and beer and the ocean and it’s like throwing a shot of home down his burning throat)

and it’s not like he has some sort of double life or anything, and he shouldn’t have to choose. everybody is chopped into little bits of themselves, never fully whole, always just that or that piece. and that’s what they never told zayn when he was little; how he could have a piece of him belonging in perries arms and a piece of him belonging in nialls. and it’s not strange, not really. he still has a piece of him belonging with his mum, and he’s not a bad or an un-whole person because of that.

 

most of the time, he’s got it tied together. (he can grip the microphone and hold the tone until he feels like he’s suffocating and burning at the same time;) but he can’t keep a hold of his life and body, parts of him melting and dripping through his skinny fingers like liquid gold; can’t scream, shout, express, because he’s caught in this like a spider web, can feel the earth mooving and liking the trill of it but can’t stop the shaking in his knees when he wants to.  
there are nights, when he’s stumbling out of clubs, alcohol poisoning his hands, and he can’t grab perrie because she’s not fucking there, but nialls there, right beside him.  
and nialls cheeks are flushed and he’s so happy and so steady for zayns hands to grab, his shoulders too easy to wrap an arm around. and he shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t get in the cab with niall because even looking at him is a lie and a betrayal and the beginning of a sin. (but zayn’s a sinner. he started smoking when he was thirteen)

 

he smokes when perrie looks at him like that. she knows, somehow. (that they’re a lost cause.) he needs to get out, get away, breath something else than air because he’s choking.   
out on the roof it’s more peaceful, but that’s not what he wants.  
he doesn’t want time to think; this isn’t something to think about, this is something to run away from. 

he smokes three cigarettes before he goes back and they’re promises and questions and sorrys at the same time and he when walks inside perries eyes are concerned, annoyed, hurt, but when they land on zayn they land on their home and zayn can feel it. and it’s bad, he doesn’t want to be her home, wants to be her burning house, wants her to back off (stop leave i don't want to hurt you) and just let him burn down to the ground from the smoke in his lungs, but she won’t walk away and neither will he.

 

niall is beautiful like this, splayed out beneeth him, looking so fucking cheerful and zayn wants to kiss the grin of his face. (he does)   
niall is so. just. he’s always grinning whatever zayn is doing to him, and zayn doesn’t even know who’s the one in control really because niall’s just enjoying the fun, and zayn is needy, like for a fucking drug, and he hates niall but he cannot cannot cannot hate; the irregular flush on his cheeks and the giggles and the few hairs on his chest and the blue in his eyes. perries eyes are blue too, but. it’s that but.

(perries the reasurance and niall’s the but.)

he licks the sweat of nialls collarbone, and it’s sticky and pure and slow in a way he can’t feel anymore, anywhere else.  
it’s that easy slowness, hazy without being quiet, because zayn can’t do quiet anymore.   
it’s like flying, sharing these intimate moments with niall, in the back of lonely tourbusses and hotelrooms in citys perries never been to. it’s not like floating, like with her, it’s like _flying _for christs sake, it’s pink and yellow and blue and he doesn’t wanna let go of his high; the ground is dark, suffocating, it’s like mud.__

__he always feels so guilty afterwards, he honestly does. niall always mumbles into the softness of the skin behind his ear (zayn tells himself that perrie has never touched him there and that he would shiver with her too) that he’s gotta get out, gotta stop, _zayn you’re hitting bottom rock soon _, _can’t you end things before she gets hurt _, and it’s bla bla bla through zayns mind because he’s neglected himself enough to not let those things tug on his heart anymore.  
they kinda do, though.(hurt, hurt, hurt) when he’s back in the uk, hugging perrie and breathing in her sweat perfume, it’s like being back but it’s not like being back to the first, purest, moment, like it kinda should._____ _

______it’s in moments like these, the inbetween-moments, when she pauses her ranting about her day to breath, that guilt washes over him and he wonders when niall creaped under his skin like this. niall’s breezy, (like flying, rembember?) not a fucking drill peircing a screw into him. yet here zayn is, suitcase in one hand and perries hand in the other; and it feels like niall has invaded his privacy and dignity and fucking relationship, and it’s zayns fault for letting him, for letting himself stumble into him._ _ _ _ _ _

_______it’s not that niall has his arms open, it’s that when zayn tugs on his face with his breath, niall doesn’t shove him away.  
niall’s not gentle, but. he never throws himself on zayn; lets zayn snuggle down next to him in the bed on his own, lets him scrabble their pointy bones together, kiss his neck, breath _need _into his hair, say _i want you _with his hands on the pale skin.  
niall gets it and perrie gets it too, is the thing. she is beautiful, soft, and funny too. but. (but, but, but) with niall under him like this, breath hitching and adams apple bumping in his throat, niall is more than beautiful. he’s all blurred lines and blonde streaks of hair, falling over his forehead and freckles zayn counts but forgets. he’s sweat and bones and he makes zayn raw, like a fucking animal for it._____ _ _ _ _

___________he would let perrie go if it wasn’t for everything; would tell her that he doesn’t love her like before and that it’s not her fault, and that no, he can’t stop smoking for her.  
he would say goodbye, kiss her cherry cheek, get his things, moove to a different part of town. he would be with niall.   
it can’t happen, though. (not in this universe) niall’s his best mate and they pretend it doesn’t happen, pretend it’s just ass-slapping on stage and fooling around when they’re high. niall’s easy going, breathes in the day with a smile and breathes it out at night, letting it go to sleep, die. he doesn’t have the constant ringing in his ears or twitching fingers for cigarettes that zayn has, doesn’t need everybody even though he loves everybody._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________zayn and niall are opposites but they slot together and it feels right, it does, (in another universe), he can’t get out._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________they’re in america when it happens. the air here is stickier, like the rain and the sweat can’t breath and gets stuck in the oxoghen around them and they can’t either. the paps are fucking crazy, and they all handle with it sort of differently; louis swears at them, liam hides, harry is friendly, niall tells the cab to just drive, for christs sake. zayn comes outside less, he’s more alive during the night than the day._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________management says he needs to speak up more in interviews, and it’s barely an exhaggeration when he tells them he’ll puke the next time he has to answer who his celebrety crush is or if he’s single._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“i don’t fucking know!” he wants to shout -“i don’t know if my girlfriend reminds me of my bandmate or if my bandmate reminds me of my fucking girlfriend anymore!”  
he drinks and smokes and it’s all just a hazy mess of blurry neon colours and stage lights and orgasms and it’s driving him crazy, but the comfortable crazy that the band is; he doesn’t have time to think._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________he snaps out of it though, the moment his girlfriend steps in through the hoteldoor that should be locked, like they’re in the words biggest chliché, a grin plastered on her painted face. it lasts for less than a second, the position niall is in under him twists into a grimace on her face, and._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________she’s still not even bloody ugly, the fucking girl. zayn hates her, for not even screaming or calling him a cunt. he hates her for walking out of the room and leaving him here to colapse on nialls chest, humming things in his ear, and he can’t stand any of this._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________because he’s not a bad fucking person. he fucking bought his mom a house and made a statue for a kids hospital, he’s sweet and sugary and in a boyband; he’s made a mess.  
niall hugs him, the other boys know too, and louis talked to him om the roof over a cigarette, and he’s right, she’ll come around._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________zayn shaves his face, sings on stage proffesionally and when his lungs burn he tells himself he deserves it. he calls his girlfriend and she doesn’t pick up.  
niall slips about around him like if zayn’s a burnt cigarette he doesn’t wanna tap on too hard because he’ll fall apart like ashes to the floor.  
you don’t have to, you can be rough with me, i’m okay, he tries saying but his troat feels dry and he does a better job telling niall what to do with his lips and hands.  
perrie picks up the phone one day, a couple of weeks after she walked in on them, and she doesn’t give him a second to explain. “i fucking - i flew - i - i flew to fucking america, zayn (the way she says his name tugs on his heart; he’s never getting her back) and i surprise you by showing up at your hotel but there you are shagging your fucking bandmate as if -“_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________she stops then, it’s like the fury ran out of her and all she has left is sadness, and he hears her sobbing on the other end, knows she promised her self not to, but. he’s sobbing too, stumbling over the words as he tells her what a bad person he is, how broken he was already before and how he never should have pulled her into the mess of his arms. he’s sorry, he says, and he means it, but. they will never be enough.  
there’s one of those inbetween-moments, as he walks back inside, cheeks damp but they don’t look wet._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

___________he can’t come up with anything to say, because in this moment everything’s so honest and through these last years there has been so many calculated lies escaping from his mouth, that when he’s standing in this room, with niall on the hotelbed, muting the footie game on the telly, he can’t form words on his tongue, doesn’t know how to just let the truth run through him.  
“she broke up with me” he lies, (altough eventually she will,) and it sounds like the wind blowing through an old rusty house. niall wraps his arms around him and he’s not so scared of the silence between them.  
he feels kinda free._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


End file.
